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View Full Version : Challenging a group [D&D 4e]



ninja_penguin
2010-04-25, 12:56 PM
So, I've been running an Eberron campaign, and my group has more or less been demolishing things that I've been intending to be a challenge, and the players themselves have asked me to try and ramp up the difficulty enough for things to be challenging. I don't want to be a jerk DM, and I don't want to have to do something silly like 'you are all now dazed/prone for the remainder of the encounter' kind of shenanigans. They're all pretty competent players.

The group, as a whole:

1. Eladrin Artificer. Is going the weapon/enhancement route. Generally manages to stay out of trouble. Crushes anything stealthy with his rather huge perception score, which is then is enhanced by the

2. Elven Ranger Beastmaster with a greatbow, is pretty hard to hit AC-wise, is spending his money almost entirely on consumable ammunition that causes dazing, and then twin-strikes all over the place. (and I'm not going to revoke the ammo, he'll be feeling that himself when he runs out/has nothing to buy other stuff with) Retreats as far as he can when threatened behind the

3.Half-elf Paladin Has hilariously high defenses like most Paladins, can grant himself a decent chunk of temp hitpoints as needed. Tanks rather well with the markings and the divine sanctioning. Also waves around a sunblade to prevent any 'it is dark out, you might be sneak attacked by a grue' encounter.

4. Deva Avenger generally harasses lone ranged types or stragglers, has some good push/pull powers that he uses to pinball guys into things that the wizard makes or drops guys off next to the paladin for some marking and/or punishment. Is a bit of a crit fiend though.

5. Eladrin Wizard Love to teleport, and be an off-tank with various wizard utility powers. pretty good with slowing everything or just throwing enough difficult terrain around to let the melee types do their business, or for the ranger to just unload and kill everything.

So, any general idea or setups that might be challenging to them? I've been slowly raising the levels of encounters, but it doesn't seem to have stopped them much, they have pretty good teamwork. Again, I'm trying to go for something challenging and fun, not something that ends up just being a boring grind of a fight.

jiriku
2010-04-25, 01:27 PM
Many parties that do well against single monsters or small groups are challenged by larger groups. Enemy action advantage increases the threat level.

Apart from that, your best bet is to change the goal of combat encounters. Instead of the goal of combat being "kill all the bad guys", create combats where the goal is "escape from the burning building/collapsing tower/flooding dungeon", "save as many commoners as possible", "protect the archmage while he performs the ritual", or "assassinate the enemy commander before his army organizes itself and crushes you". Not only are these combats more interesting, but it's actually possible to succeed at these goals without killing all the bad guys, or to fail even though you manage to slay all your foes.

Swordgleam
2010-04-25, 05:08 PM
Combats with goals are fun, as jiriku said. Give the PCs something to protect or to destroy or a time limit.

Terrain and surprise rounds are also good. How well does their teamwork function in a narrow corridor? Against ranged enemies who have set up a kill zone? While fighting on a narrow, rickety bridge? While fighting atop a very small building?

My party's most challenging encounter was getting a slaad out of a water tower without damaging the tower at all, and as fast as possible to minimize contamination. They also didn't want the slaad to bleed in the water. It was fun.

The New Bruceski
2010-04-25, 06:07 PM
Also consider areas built to split the party. Imagine the party facing three fronts of foes behind cover with ranged and melee attacks. Even if they coordinate well enough to move towards one the other two unite to strike at their back.

Mando Knight
2010-04-25, 08:11 PM
Black Dragon. Think you're perceptive? Try finding a Lurker with a -10 to your Perception checks. You can't flank when you're blind, either.

Anasazi
2010-04-26, 02:44 AM
A well balanced team like that is a compliment to your players, sounds like they have a good foothold. But there are easy means of challenging them effectively.
*Have them fight their doubles, play their evil sides the same way they normally play their characters, this will force them to adapt new strategys and establish whats weakest about themselves, if they dont adapt a different attacking style, they'll have a 50% chance of survival. The nice part about this is it can be a reoccuring theme, as like the players have a chance to bug out, so do their doubles.
*Continuing with that trend, place them in an arena where they fight equally challenging teams of balanced classes, if you keep to pc classes it could get quite challenging. Just keep in mind hp to damage ratio, pc's have a great deal higher damage than they do health so be cautious about using too many striker classes. Defenders work well for screwing up the players who already think they know who their target are, i find swordmages work extremely well against ranged attackers.
*An expanded idea from previous mentions, have the players defend something like a gate, where they cant let anyone pass, and then send back to back waves at them, each wave designed specifically to come in at a certain round that the players know about. This generates an urgency for killing the targets quickly and efficently before they get overrun by numbers.

ninja_penguin
2010-04-26, 10:00 AM
*Have them fight their doubles, play their evil sides the same way they normally play their characters, this will force them to adapt new strategys and establish whats weakest about themselves, if they dont adapt a different attacking style, they'll have a 50% chance of survival. The nice part about this is it can be a reoccuring theme, as like the players have a chance to bug out, so do their doubles.


I actually did do this for a boss encounter. Unfortunately, I blew the initiative rolls for the baddies, and one crit-fest and one round of action point nova explosion had half the baddies down or bloodied.




*An expanded idea from previous mentions, have the players defend something like a gate, where they cant let anyone pass, and then send back to back waves at them, each wave designed specifically to come in at a certain round that the players know about. This generates an urgency for killing the targets quickly and efficently before they get overrun by numbers.

I've been toying with ideas like this, I think I need to get myself a bigger playmat so I can expand the map enough so that ranged guys aren't in an easy 'move-charge' range.

valadil
2010-04-26, 10:14 AM
Try out a lot of stuff. See what hurts them. Make sure your encounters have a variety of enemies instead of 5 similar NPCs. Adjust accordingly.

My PCs had similar complaints at first. One of the things I noticed immediately was that they owned my minions. There was a pretty simple reason for this - they had two controllers and a sword mage. AoEs galore! Minions as written posed no threat to my party. I like minions though. And I don't want to take away what makes the controllers cool. So I doubled them. Or halved their XP costs. I'm not sure which. At any rate there are twice as many minions as there should be. That fixed things pretty well.

I also increased the levels of my enemies. Instead of using creatures that were similar levels to the PCs, I go with 1-3 levels higher. This made the fights more interesting, but too many players were dropping. Turned out the problem here was that my group is relatively low on hit points. Most brutes at this point could kill a party member in 2 shots. That's a little too lethal in my opinion, so brutes got scaled back to normal levels. Soldiers too because they're tough. And I try to use more controllers than artillery because I think status effects and conditions are more interesting than HP loss.

I also started using more interesting terrain. From GMing 3.5 I was used to improvising terrain when it was time for a fight. 4e has a lot of push/pull/slide effects though. If those don't matter, the players get sad. They'd rather be able to use those abilities. So I started planning terrain in advance.

And I learned that terrain is hard. I still haven't figured out how to do it right. My goal though is to approach the terrain from the eyes of the NPCs. Let them pick where the fight takes place. They're not going to ambush the players on an empty field. They're going to do it where they have the advantage. It's just a matter of making up what that advantage happens to be. I like this method because it makes for a battle dynamic that I enjoy. The players start out at the disadvantage. Once they realize what's going on they take over the terrain. They may not use it to their own advantage, but they'll gain an even playing field. And then they win. This terrain method also means that if the players do well scouting, you can reward them by placing them somewhere the NPCs didn't expect. They get an easier fight in reward for scouting first.

tl;dr I doubled the number of minions, and increased the levels of status effect dispensers. See what threatens your party and adjust accordingly. Also, terrain.